When I was growing up in North Dakota I started driving trucks in grain harvest when I was 14. It was a special farm kids exemption license. I wasn’t allowed to drive a car but I could drive a loaded truck into town to the grain elevator. When I was finally allowed to drive a car it was like playing with a toy.
When we brought grain to an elevator they would do a protein test. If it was 15% protein or greater there was a premium paid on the price per bushel.
We eventually starting growing bearded wheats, dwarf hybrids. The protein on them was more like 12-13% but the increase in yields outweighed the loss of the premium.
As farming is very competitive, it was basically start growing the hybrid wheats or go out of business.
The commercially grown vegetables, fruits and grains that we are eating today are significantly less nutritious than these foods were 100 years ago, or even just 30 years ago.
By Cheryl Long
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Plant breeders have increased yields in most crops, but this is causing our food’s nutrient content to decline.
ISTOCK PHOTO/WOJTEK KRYCZKA
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We now have solid, scientific evidence of this troubling trend. For example:
- In wheat and barley, protein concentrations declined by 30 to 50 percent between the years 1938 and 1990.
- Likewise, a study of 45 corn varieties developed from 1920 to 2001, grown side by side, found that the concentrations of protein, oil and three amino acids have all declined in the newer varieties.
- Six minerals have declined by 22 to 39 percent in 14 widely grown wheat varieties developed over the past 100 years.
- Official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data shows that the calcium content of broccoli averaged 12.9 milligrams per gram of dry weight in 1950, but only 4.4 mg/g dry weight in 2003.
All of this evidence has been assembled and rigorously reviewed by Dr. Donald R. Davis, a now (mostly) retired chemist from the University of Texas.
So what’s causing these declines? The evidence indicates there are at least two forces at work. The first is what agriculture researchers call the environmental “dilution effect.” Davis notes that researchers have known since the 1940s that yield increases produced by fertilization, irrigation and other environmental means used in industrial farming tend to decrease the concentrations of minerals in those plants. These techniques give growers higher yields, and consumers get less expensive food. But now it appears there’s a hidden long-term cost — lowered food quality.
For example, a study of phosphorous fertilizer on raspberries found that applying high levels of phosphorus caused the yield to double and concentrations of phosphorus to increase in the plants, but meanwhile levels of eight other minerals declined by 20 to 55 percent!
The other force at work is what Davis calls the genetic dilution effect — the decline in nutrient concentration that results when plant breeders develop high-yielding varieties without a primary focus on broad nutrient content. That’s what the studies of wheat, corn and broccoli confirm.
September 11, 2009 at 10:42 am
I had to comment here. I grew up in Brazil and, like you, saw the grains get transported from the farm to the large commercial scales. I didn’t drive the trucks though. They where huge, they where like monsters. My father grew endless acres of soybeans to feed cattle in the US for hamburgers. You could not see the end of the fields unless you flew over by airplane. My father made his money, but wasn’t happy about that kind of farming. Eventually he gave up out of disgust for the whole system. One of his great pains in life was that he could not take us, his children, to the fields because of the poison sprayed regularly so to get “better results”. He was ashamed of his farming. And rightly so. My memories of that kind of agriculture is of brutality and guilt mixed with the sound of the shuffling harvest.
So I am not one to condemn farmers in the US or anywhere in the world who at least diversify a little. But I have come a long way. Quite by chance now my husband is a terrific, greatly celebrated organic farmer here in NC. He works only 11 acres, but oh the quality of the food he produces! And the people who buy his food through his CSA are not just customers, they are more like faithful followers, very grateful for his work. I tell some people who really admire his work that he actually chants Hare Krishna mantra to his plants before transplanting them to the fields. And they say, “Oh, thats the secret then, its really spiritual food”. And they are right. Sustainable, small scale farming is only human, civilized. But a bhakta doing it is perfection.
September 11, 2009 at 4:58 pm
The standard for protein content is 14% in ND, and this year farmers are taking a huge hit (-$1.50+) for wheat less than that. This especially hurts when wheat is only $4.60/bushel.
September 11, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Thanks both of you for commenting.
September 12, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Gosh… any ideas for those that do not have a garden in which to grow their own organic food? And even if one does organically grow their own food, how can the nutritional content be assured? Is the food from organic co-ops generally higher in protein and other nutrients?
September 14, 2009 at 11:31 am
Using heritage seeds means you are getting the old genetic materials so I assume the proteins etc would be higher.
Unfortunately, organic used to mean local closed cycle production but it doesn’t anymore. Organic gardening has also fallen under the influence of industrial farming.
Still, it has to be a step up and is certainly a better alternative.